


Hang On Just One More Day

by ImmoralOwl



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Abandonment, Accidental Death, Afterlife, Depression, Drug Use, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Limbo, Loneliness, Loss of Identity, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImmoralOwl/pseuds/ImmoralOwl
Summary: Kraglin doesn't really mean it or at least he thinks he didn't when he opens his eyes and realizes he has a choice to make.What he does mean now though, he's fully serious about.





	Hang On Just One More Day

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on something cute and sweet about them in pre-exile time but I hit writers block with it and I couldn't help but think "what if Kraglin doesn't handle losing Yondu" so, uh, I appologize in advance haha  
> Really Kraglin I love you, honest.

Hang on just one more day.  
Kraglin’s been telling himself that for months now, repeating it like a mantra, like Quill did the same songs when he was younger and Yondu was still here and all the kid had was Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1 for comfort.  
Now Quill has a crew, friends spread across the galaxy, a functional again M-Ship, an unspoken thing with a beautiful green woman.  
Kraglin doesn’t have any of that.  
What he does have is a tomb of memories and reminders he’s alone.

No one needs him here, he’s a spare tire or more like the spare tire for the spare tire since at least the bug girl can do something the others can’t.  
She can read emotions, put people to sleep, she’s even been working on figuring out how to use her abilities for other areas of helpfulness.  
Drax is a brick wall of muscle where he’s a toothpick, not that he can’t hold his own in a fight but Drax is definitely the go to brawler.  
Gamora is a daughter of Thanos, she’s smart beyond her years and level headed, great with a sword and can navigate the stars like an old pro.  
Groot can make lights come out of his body, he can grow his arms and snap them off and when he gets a little bigger he’ll be a force to be reckoned with just like the rest of them.  
Rocket is a weapons expert, an ace pilot, and can fix everything he can and so much more even faster, the raccoon can practically fabricate in his sleep too.  
Peter is a well rounded leader, he’s also suave and crafty just like they’d taught him and when he isn’t he has his team to back him up or step in.  
Other than Mantis they’ve been a team since the orb so they have their dynamics down and everyone has their own place, knows where they belong.

Peter is always asking him to do work that Rocket refuses or doesn’t have time to do and asks his opinion on their decisions like he actually needs a seventh but he knows what it really is, and sure Peter might want him to be there because he’s the last of his original space family but he doesn’t need him.  
No one really needs him anymore.  
There’s no rowdy drunken brawls to break up, no tricky illegal heists to help plan, no slacking rookies to yell at, no scarred blue body during the night cycle to cuddle close so it’s owner’s nightmares stop.  
There’s only so long he can gaze out into the void before he stops seeing stars and starts seeing the bodies of his friends, of the one person who made him truly happy, float past and he aches impossibly even more than he already does.

There’s this tiny part of him that hates Peter, hates all his friends, hates how they smile now and go about their days like there isn’t anything horribly missing, hates that Peter decided to use the Quad as home base instead of getting a different galleon or just using the Milano even though Kraglin knows he’d have never been able to agree to scraping it.  
Part of him hates Yondu too.  
He promised if anything went wrong he’d look after ‘their’ boy, but he hadn’t believed anything would.  
Fuck Yondu, fuck him for sacrificing himself for Peter without giving a thought about what it would do to him, how devastating that would be to him when he was all he had left in the universe!  
It wasn’t fair to say and he knew it, knew if Yondu hadn’t done what he did and Peter had died instead it would have killed Yondu anyway and no matter how much he loved Yondu it wouldn’t ever completely heal that wound.  
Yondu had made the right decision even if it hurt and made a tiny part of Kraglin resent him for it.

It was probably that same part of him that took over different parts of himself sometimes like a phantom entity, spoke to him in a rough voice that wasn’t quite Yondu’s.  
The voice always asked what he was holding on for, what he thought one more day was going to do.  
He knew it wasn’t Yondu, his Yondu would never say things like that, never even insinuate to him what that voice was even if he could reach out from beyond to let him know he missed being with him.  
It dug numb claws into his heart during training with the arrow sometimes making him ‘accidently’ point it at himself.  
It took control of his hand and wrote a letter to Peter telling him nothing Kraglin did was his fault and how his family would get him through just like they did before.  
It sat behind his eyes blocking his smile from reaching them and steered them to linger his gaze on Peter’s holstered blaster with a look of longing more times than he could count.  
It wrapped it’s ghostly limbs around him and guided his feet to the airlock once, lifted his hand to push the button for the outer door and hover it over the one to open the inner so they’d both be sucked out where they belonged.  
Peter had taken them to Xander after that one and insisted they all talk about what had happened in all the time that had passed since Peter took off and stole the orb to a professional.  
He hadn’t wanted to go, Peter promised he’d feel better though but if anything afterward he just felt worse.  
It hadn’t been as much group therapy as it was aimed at him and Peter, mostly him.  
When she said they all needed to move on and suggested Peter take him out to meet ‘someone’ he’d tunned her out, he didn’t want to move on at least not like that.  
He didn’t need some fancy lady in a suit to tell him Yondu wouldn’t want him to mourn forever either.  
She gave him a bottle of pills that were supposed to help but they just made him feel fuzzy, like he was forgetting to remember something important and he found he didn’t care about anything, couldn’t feel anything enough to.

He wanted to be happy, he tried to be happy, he shoved the voices and the spector back as often as he had the energy to but he either felt nothing or like there was a black hole in his chest slowing sucking his very being in on itself.  
Yondu’s arrow and fin, their bedroom, the ship they shared nearly their whole adult lives on, pictures, trinkets, none of it was the one thing he really needed to be happy.  
Kraglin sat on the edge of their bed, gut rotting strong bottle of alcohol he keeps in one hand when no ones around as he reached for the bottle of pills for what felt like the millionth time since being prescribed them.  
He dumped them out on the nightstand by the letter to Peter he had never bothered to crumple up and stick in a drawer or throw away.  
He rolled the little pink capsule back and forth between his thumb and pointer finger like a gemsmith inspecting a diamond.

It was supposed to help him feel better.  
He took another.  
They were supposed to make him happy.  
He took another.  
He wanted to be happy.  
He took another.  
He didn’t want to fight with himself anymore.  
He took another.  
He thought he was starting to feel calmer, almost peaceful.  
He took another and another and another…. 

As he laid back down on the bed and hugged Yondu’s favorite pillow to his chest inhaling the last few particles of his scent after all this time he felt better, he was even smiling.  
When the room started to spin he even found himself giggling quietly at the blur of the ceiling and the little glow in the dark star Peter had put above their bed when he was 9 as it twisted and turned.  
Just as the spinning turned into fading he heard a voice call his name, or at least he thought he did, it sounded like it was a million miles away and underwater.  
He turned his head toward the sound when they started screaming high pitched and watery and tried to speak, tried to tell the blob of a person that it was okay and he felt really really good finally but he felt like the first time he’d had beer fresh from the tap and had got nothing but a mouth full of foam.  
His eyes were heavy, maybe if he closed them he could ignore the new voices that had come and just enjoy this creeping happiness he finally found.

The next time he opens his eyes he’s in a near endless hallway and it’s dark except for two little spots of light on either side of him at the impossibly far away ends, they look like twinkling stars they’re so far away.  
He takes a few steps in the right direction and suddenly he can hear far off voices but he can’t make out what all they’re saying other than ‘no’ over and over and ‘can’t reach him’ and ‘all the reverse we have’.  
He feels cold going that way, lonely despite the fact he hears his name being said with passion in between sad mumbled words.  
He turns and heads to the left.  
This way feels warm, loved.  
As he gets closer he thinks he sees red dots in the blinding light.  
The voices in this direction though seem just as sad if not sadder, they softly say things like ‘not yet’ and ‘oh laddie no’ and ‘go back’.  
He stops and looks back at the other light, unsure if should listen or keep going, they both want him to go the same direction.

Then there’s a noise that silences everything and he recognizes it, would know that voice anywhere no matter how much time had gone by.  
It says “I’m so sorry Krags” and it’s loud and clear and just a touch watery and remorseful in a way he’s only ever heard half a dozen times in almost just as many decades.  
Kraglin finds himself sprinting and then full on running.  
He knows which direction he wants to go now, nothing is going to stop him.  
He’s going to be happy now and the closer to his destination the happier he does feel, consequences of any kind be damned, nothing is going to take this feeling away again.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about naming this "If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands" but like Quill's message to Dey, I'm an asshole but I'm not 100% a dick.  
> Also I'm bipolar (along with a half dozen other issues) and one of the drugs they had me on made me feel like Kraglin- that huh maybe if I just take another, oh that's a little better I'll take another one. I didn't do it but I really wanted to point out the fact that mentality can be a real thing.  
> As always if I missed something that should be tagged let me know please.  
> And I know I'm awkward when I reply but really I do appreciate all the comments and kudos !


End file.
